Titles and prize money are just two of the issues which have to be resolved.

Will the UCI attempt to resist USADA’s decision to strip Armstrong of his titles and claim the results should stand? The UCI has had its nose put badly out of place because it claims jurisdiction over this case and the reported 38 ‘negative’ tests, overseen by the UCI on Armstrong’s comeback in 2009-110, which USADA claims were positive. It could have confirmed USADA’s intention to strip Armstrong of his seven titles last night but pointedly chose not to and is demanding to see all the evidence before taking a view on the matter. In the end, though, it is difficult to see how it can fail to eradicate Armstrong’s name from the record books.

Should any rider be awarded the Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005 or should the races be declared no result? This is the biggest banana skin. It would be a pointless and hypocritical exercise upgrading everybody on the podium because so many concerned have drug-tainted pasts – Jan Ullrich, Alex Zülle, Ivan Basso, Alexandre Vinokourov, and others – so the sensible thing to do must be to declare those races null and void. That would anger ASO, the race organisers, and the clean riders who participated in those races.

Will Armstrong be forced to pay back prize money and/or funds donated by his sponsors? The jury is out. USADA says it expects all prize money to be paid back but that is easier said than done. All Armstrong’s prize money during his seven Tour wins will have been paid into a communal team pot, with all the proceeds split nine ways among the team. Another 15 per cent is traditionally put aside for the mechanics and backroom staff.

Will the evidence assembled by USADA be made public? Travis Tygart, the USADA chief executive, says yes, and certainly at some stage it needs to get a public airing if any sort of closure is to be achieved. There needs to be rock-solid evidence, as well as testimony, to back up USADA’s actions. In particular it needs to be disclosed why the USADA testers believe that Armstrong’s sample from his comeback years was positive when they were deemed to be negative at the time.

What happens to the other people charged alongside Armstrong? The two former US Postal team doctors – Dr Luis Garcia del Moral, Dr Michele Ferrari – and trainer Jose Pepe Marti chose not to contest the issue in June and received automatic life bans. The one major outstanding case is Armstrong’s former sporting director Johan Bruyneel, who says that he is determined to prove his innocence at the arbitration meeting when it happens, possiby in November.